20 Epilogue Ficlets
by Shenandoah Risu
Summary: 20 moments in Everett and Tamara's life on Novus.


**Title: 20 "Epilogue" Ficlets  
><strong>**Author: Shenandoah Risu  
>Rating:<strong> Teen  
><strong>Content Flags:<strong> adult situations, swear words, canon character death  
><strong>Spoilers:<strong> SGU Season 2 "Common Descent" and "Epilogue"  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Everett Young, Tamara Johansen, other SGU characters  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 2,251  
><strong>Summary:<strong> _20 moments in Everett and Tamara's life on Novus._  
><strong>Author's Notes:<strong> Written for the 20 in 20 challenge at the LJ comm _stargateland._ The original post included 20 icons matching the stories. Sadly, they can't be posted here...  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I don't own SGU. I wouldn't know what to do with it. Now, Young... Young I'd know what to do with. ;-)  
><strong>Thanks for reading! Feedback = Love. ;-)<strong>

**oOo**

**Accessory**

It's the fucking biggest needle he's ever seen.

He hates needles anyway, and Heaven knows he's had them stuck into his body just about everywhere, for injuries suffered over the course of his career, IVs, bloodwork, vaccinations against diseases he can't even remember.

But this…

This is scarier than the long open gash on his shin that's so deep and nasty you can see right down to the bone.

Oddly, though, he can barely feel it, the cut hurts so much he's simply maxed out on pain, and when she jokes about her worst accessory, it's actually funny, and he laughs with her.

**oOo**

**Space**

He misses the emptiness of space occasionally.

On Novus, everything is so tangible, so real, so _right there_.

Sometimes he steals away from it all, stares at the mountains in the distance - there, but unreachable for the moment, a dark outline against the starry night sky, and the strange tingling yearning creeps back into his heart.

She slips her slim hand into his rough paw, and the tingle turns into a sob, because he would do it again in a heartbeat and give up everything he knew and loved, just to be with her.

The space she fills in his life is all he really needs.

**oOo**

**Dreaming**

He dreams of her every night.

Not nightmares, but beautiful dreams that are like his memories of her. Intellectually he knows it was a rough, difficult time with many tears and hardships and constant exhaustion, but neither of them had ever been happier. In his dream memories everything is bathed in a soft, golden light, her body glowing next to his, her hair radiant, her eyes shining with love and passion, her skin like honey beneath his fingertips, soft, smooth, her smile warm and genuine, her voice like that of an angel.

Sometimes he wishes for nightmares, the kind that make you feel glad you're awake.

**oOo**

**Black and white**

By the time Steven is born it's dark. Eli has it all documented on a kino. In the dim light of the fire the footage appears in black and white.

Young cringes as he watches TJ scream in pain on the small viewscreen.

He remembers running as if his life depended on it; he'd promised to take care of her, to be there when she needed him.

He's watched the recording countless times, he knows exactly when he comes rushing into the picture, but he still blows out a breath of relief every time, and it always makes TJ laugh.

**oOo**

**Hair**

"You need a haircut," TJ says one morning, as he wakes in her arms.

He yawns. "Good morning to you, too."

She plants a tiny kiss on his nose.

"I'm going to tie you to a chair and get Brody's prototype scissors and give you a good shearing," she announces, sitting up.

"Oh no," he stammers in poorly acted terror, "You might as well just scalp me."

She giggles, pulls him into her lap and starts weaving his hair into a dozen tiny braids. He reaches up to check on her handiwork, yelps, and wrestles her back down onto the covers, kissing her to try to silence her laughter.

**oOo**

**Hero**

"Thanks, guys – and don't build me any statues just yet," Young smiles as he wins his first election to mayor, TJ sitting by his side. "We got a lotta work ahead of us. If anyone deserves your gratitude, it's Brody and Varro and Camile and TJ, who do far more important things every day than I do. I'm just a grunt now. But I'll do my best to take care of all of you. We're all in this together."

Greer raises his hand: "So, _when_ can we build the statue, Sir?"

Young laughs. "Oh, give it another two thousand years. Maybe then, if anybody still remembers us."

**oOo**

**Friends**

She's his wife now, but they're also best friends.

She is his soul mate, his better half, mother of his children, the head of his household.

She is his confidante, his best buddy, the one he laughs with.

She's his pal, his partner, his collaborator, his coworker, his co-conspirator in surprises.

She's his nurse, his doctor, his surgeon.

She's his love, his life, his passion, his reason for living, she's what gets him out of bed in the morning and back in at the end of the day.

She's his guide, his angel, his protector, his hero, his conscience, his heart.

**oOo**

**Uniform**

There was a time in his life when he and his uniform were the same thing.

His calling nearly killed him many times, and since the escape from Icarus he's had memories of all those events embedded in those clothes: the singed edge from the base exploding behind him, the scuff marks from the planet with the crashed ship, the rips and tears from the Lucian invasion, the gash where the axe had embedded itself in his shin shortly after their arrival on Novus.

His uniform is like a storybook now. He looks at it as it's hanging in the closet, and then he closes the door.

**oOo**

**Circle**

Young steps through the round cave entrance into the howling sandstorm. His lungs are working furiously to suck in more air, and he tries to keep the dust and grit out of his mouth. He checks with Barnes and Marsden who are huddled near the gate, and they signal to him that they're okay.

When he returns Eli meets him at the entrance, ready to dial the gate, with Scott and Greer in tow, wheezing, weapons at the ready.

As soon as Scott gives the all clear he sends Eli through and stumbles back to the cave to get the others.

He's the last one to step through the ancient ring to safety.

**oOo**

**Home**

No matter how much everyone assured him that they were home, that he should stop worrying about it, he always felt he hadn't accomplished his goal. They smiled about it but let him hold on to his perceived failure. And truthfully – what did they know? To them, Novus _was_ home. They had their families, their friends, their loved ones.

Home for him had been TJ.

Home had lasted for a little over seven years.

After that he found himself homeless again, anchored only by his children.

For them, he held on. For them, he remained a father. For them, he kept his family.

**oOo**

**Anger**

He got angry frequently, during those early days on Novus. Nobody bore him any ill will, though, because they all knew the feeling. They were all angry, and all for different reasons: they were hungry, tired, in pain, desperate, disillusioned, confused, lonely, and above all, they were scared. Fights broke out all the time over nothing.

He'd seen it all before, when they first arrived on the Destiny. He felt the same things they did but he could not allow himself to dwell on them. So he turned them into anger, and strangely enough, they accepted it, they stopped their quarrels and worked together.

It was necessary for their survival.

**oOo**

**Grief**

He'd lost so much in his life, he thought he knew what loss was all about. It would make him miserable, and then he would throw himself into his work and drown out his sorrow and push it out of the way – back into that little corner of his mind where he never dared to go.

When TJ died he tried to do the same thing.

But her place in his life had been too important, his grief was so all-encompassing, he had no concept of how to deal with it. And so he never did.

He simply learned to live with it.

**oOo**

**Happiness**

For him, happiness was being with her.

Even in the worst of times, he was happy while she was with him. They laughed when the first door he built didn't fit into the frame, when her first loaf of bread was a lump of charcoal, when dropped the freshly scrubbed diapers in the mud while they were doing the laundry together, down at the river.

They were happy in their tiny house, with their two beautiful children. He was happy making love to her at night and seeing her face first thing in the morning.

Happiness was even washing her, caring for her, feeding her, holding her.

**oOo**

**Lust**

He was just about old enough to be her father, and while the mere thought of her made his heart flutter, he could never really keep up with her. She understood, of course, and he came up with all sorts of different ways to satisfy her cravings for him.

He knew how to use his fingers and his lips and his tongue to torture her sweetly, to make her ride out the waves of her lust, and he would watch her tremble and shake in paroxysms of desire, and when she breathed his name in ecstasy he had everything she felt as well.

**oOo**

**Comfort**

She came to him for comfort, long before they got back together. He was always there when she needed him.

He came to her for comfort, long before their first kiss. When he was hurting, she was always there to help

Over time, their mere being together was all the comfort they needed, and he found his strength in her and she in him.

He always knew how she felt about something, and talking things over with him helped her make up her mind.

They were comfortable with each other, with their fears, their weaknesses, their insecurities, their doubts, their demons.

**oOo**

**Artist's Choice: TJ's POV** _(NC-17)_

**Hands**

Every night when he's about to drop off to sleep, she would gently massage his fingers, paying special attention to his crippled right pinkie finger. He had snapped the joint during the evacuation from Icarus, and for weeks after she had taped it to his ring finger, trying to keep it splinted. But even the orthopedic surgeon they had brought in via the Stones couldn't do anything to help him – the surgery would have been too delicate. She would watch him fiddle with it during the day, knowing it was bothering him, so at night she would kiss it until the pain was gone.

**oOo**

**Skin**

On rare occasions she would have enough plant oil from the garden that she can give him a full body massage. It never ceases to amaze her how thirstily his skin sucks up the oil, and how smooth and soft he feels afterwards. She would run her hands over his shoulders and back, feel the hard muscles trying to relax, and lower, making him groan with pleasure. He's ticklish on the back of his thighs, and more often than not her skin care program for him ends up with him inside of her and the feeling of him all the way against her, now flushed and glistening in the low light.

**oOo**

**Cheeks**

She runs her hands along his jaw – strong, angular, masculine. Planting tiny kisses along the path her fingers are taking she nips lightly at his earlobe, pleased with his amused chuckle. Propping herself up on her elbows she studies his face, his full round cheeks and the way his dimples make him look so much younger than his actual age. Sometimes, when he relaxes, she can see his boyhood face, the teenager, the young man. She kisses his cheeks, the many tiny wrinkles at the corner of his mouth and eyes, and she's proud of all the little laugh lines she put there over the past few years.

**oOo**

**Eyes**

She well remembers the first time she saw him, back on Icarus, as he met her at the beaming platform outside the base. She remembers noticing she was taller than him, remembers the sadness that seemed to follow him around, wrapping him in a cloud of distance-keeping solitude. But his eyes – she remembers the warmth in his eyes, how dark they always seemed, the shock she got every time they looked at each other. Now she knows how his pupils dilate in arousal when she so much as touches him, and it makes her heart speed up to know that it has always been that way.

**oOo**

**Lips**

His lips are always soft, caressing her face, her breasts, her stomach. When he makes love to her, his lips brush over her clit, the inside of her thighs, pressing tender kisses to her sensitive skin. His lips are full and curved gently, beautifully, and she adores it when he uses nothing but his lips to arouse her, to coax her gently to an orgasm that leaves her shaking for many breaths afterwards. Then his lips meet hers, as he carefully sucks her lower lip into his mouth, and then her upper lip. Kissing him is a complex art. He's taught her much and she's always eager to learn more.

.


End file.
